July 28, 2014

IT'S NOT THE TACTICS, IT'S THE STRATEGY (OR LACK THEREOF):

Things change, of course--the only constant in the Middle East is sudden and dramatic change--but as I write it seems as if Israel is losing the war in Gaza, even as it wins the battle against Hamas's rocket arsenal, and even as it destroys the tunnels meant to convey terrorists underground to Israel (and to carry Israeli hostages back to Gaza).

This is not the first time Israel has found itself losing on the battlefield of perception. Why is it happening again? Here are six possible reasons:

1. In a fight between a state actor and a non-state actor, the non-state actor can win merely by surviving. The party with tanks and planes is expected to win; the non-state group merely has to stay alive in order to declare victory. In a completely decontextualized, emotion-driven environment, Hamas can portray itself as the besieged upstart, even when it is the party that rejects ceasefires, and in particular because it is skilled at preventing journalists from documenting the activities of its armed wing. (I am differentiating here between Hamas's leadership and Gaza's civilians, who are genuinely besieged, from all directions.)

2. Hamas's strategy is to bait Israel into killing Palestinian civilians, and Israel usually takes the bait. This time, because of the cautious nature of its prime minister, Israel waited longer than usual before succumbing to the temptation of bait-taking, but it took it all the same.

People will accept civilians casualties if your war aim warrants them--like intentionally fire-bombing German and Japanese civilians to end World War II.

Israel's problem is that it is killing civilians in a war that is only about tunnels. Moreover, if Israel continues the occupation the tunnels will be rebuilt. If Israel ends the occupation and recognizes the democratically elected government of a nation of Palestine, it will open the borders and obviate the need for tunnels. It's a Helleresque exercise.

The superior power in an asymmetrical conflict always has a problem defining its objectives. In this case, Israel aspires to achieve "quiet" with few enough Palestinian civilian casualties to minimize international criticism. But the failure to achieve this goal is precisely where the superior power is defeated in asymmetrical conflicts. Moreover, "quiet" is not a strategic goal; nor is Israel's way of pursuing it - a war every two or three years - particularly convincing.

The real question is this: Assuming that Israel gets the quiet that it wants, what does it intend to do with Gaza in the future? And what does it intend to do with the Palestinian problem of which Gaza is an integral part?

The question of Palestine is at the root of the asymmetrical wars that Israel has been facing in recent years, not only against Hamas, Qatar's Palestinian client, but also against Hezbollah, Iran's proxy in the region. These wars are creating a new kind of threat to Israel, for they add to the conflicts' strictly military dimension the domains of diplomacy, regional politics, legitimacy, and international law, in which Israel does not have the upper hand.

As a result, in asymmetrical conflicts, Israel finds its military superiority vitiated. These are political battles that cannot be won by military means. The asymmetry between the nature of the threats and Israel's response ends up putting the superior military power in a position of strategic inferiority. The spread of violence to the West Bank - and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's support of Hamas's objectives - means that Israel cannot avoid the conflict's political consequences. Hamas, a neglected opponent of Abbas's diplomatic strategy, is gradually becoming the avant-garde of Palestine's struggle for liberation.

Contrary to what Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu believes, the main existential threat facing the country is not a nuclear-armed Iran. The real peril is to be found at home: the corrosive effect of the Palestinian problem on Israel's international standing. The devastation caused by Israel's periodic asymmetrical confrontations, combined with the continuing occupation of Palestinian lands and the ever-growing expansion of settlements, has fueled a growing campaign to undermine Israel's legitimacy.